Promoters of democracy

Manuel E. Yepe

WHEN the United Arab Emirates monarchy ordered the closing of the National Democratic Institute’s offices in Abu Dhabi in April, The New York Times reported that certain forces in the United States were surprised, given their view of the NDI as a respectable non-profit agency devoted to promoting democracy around the world.

The NDI identifies itself as a non-governmental agency (NGO) despite the notorious financing it receives from the United States government through the Department of State and the CIA.

Given the language used in the Times article by journalist Steven Lee Myers, it appears that the majority of U.S. citizens consider it absolutely natural that the U.S. government subsidize organizations which send people all over the world promoting democracy, even supporting revolutions in nations not considered sufficiently "Jeffersonian."

According to Myers, the U.A.E. decision constituted "a surprising act of diplomatic defiance," given that it was made right before the announcement of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the country for a meeting with its leaders and those of other member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Clinton did not hesitate to take exception to the move, but did so in surprisingly weak terms. She maintained that the NDI played a vital role supporting NGO’s and civil society in the region, but limited herself to announcing that she would be discussing the issue with her hosts.

This moderate position taken by Clinton, who has displayed her arrogance in other similar circumstances, reflects the U.S. government’s need to situate itself carefully within a specific regional context.

Just a few days earlier, in Egypt, a number of representatives of NGO’s "promoting democracy" there had been arrested and were being threatened with prosecution, on charges of interference in the country’s internal affairs.

The accused were representatives of three well-known NGO’s with ties to the CIA - NDI, Freedom House and the International Republican Institute – which had received $65 million in foreign funding to carry out activities intended to influence elections underway in the country and promote U.S. objectives in the region.

The news was widely disseminated in U.S. media, since among those detained was the son of Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation in the Obama administration. He was facing criminal charges along with several others who were subsequently released after the U.S. threatened to cancel a projected $1.3 weapons sale to Egypt.

Activities of the groups, all CIA fronts, were, however, suspended.

Moscow, as well, has expressed its indignation given the interventionist activities of NGO’s in Russia recently. Vladimir Putin has denounced the fact that during his Presidential campaign, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the United States to influence the process. China has expressed similar concerns about U.S. intervention.

Robert W. Merry, editor of The National Interest magazine and author of several books about U.S. history, asks, in an article entitled "Unmasking the Democracy Promoters," how U.S. citizens would feel if analogous organizations from Russia, China or India devoted vast resources to influencing internal U.S. politics.

Merry quotes Michael McFaul, NDI representative in Russia, "We’re not going to get into the business of dictating [Russia’s] path [to democracy]. We’re just going to support what we like to call universal values - not American values, not Western values, universal values."